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Comment by wildrhythms | Hacker News Reader

They can't afford the costs because the landlords have inflated the costs. It's a cycle that doesn't need to exist.

That doesn't answer the question. An 18 year old who has literally never worked a day in his life can not afford an apartment no matter what the price, inflated or not. Should land owners be obligated to lower the price to $0.25 so that this teenager can buy the property with a coin he finds on the street? Should it be $20 so that his first paycheck can be used to buy lodging? Should all plumbers and electricians offer their services for a couple dollars so that every teenager can keep their new property maintained?

You have created a false reality, and then cried foul when real life didn't play ball.

>Should land owners be obligated to lower the price to $0.25 so that this teenager can buy the property with a coin he finds on the street?

Wouldn't a reality where land is only held by those using it and you can buy land for a quarter be better? I don't even mean to be funny or anything but that seems like a much better situation that our current one.

This 18 year old can get a loan, they can pool together with a group of flatmates to purchase a property together or they can live in staffed accommodation, such as a dorms, motel, hotel or hostel. They can purchase a room in a boarding house. They can stay with friends and family. Plenty of options.

Landlords buying land does not unilaterally inflate the cost of land. Arguably in the long-run, the price of land just reflects the discounted cashflow of its future rental value. City centre land is expensive not because of landlords, it's expensive because so many different parties are able to derive so much utility from occupying it, and are willing and able to bid large amounts to capture that utility.

Arguably there are two big problems with the market for land/housing, and landlords aren't one o them:

#1 Increases the value of land due to neighbourhood effects accrue to the owner when they do little to deserve it (you can tackle this with land-value taxes).

#2 Various planning controls inhibit the market's ability to respond to high accomodation prices with the construction of more accomodation, keeping rents at a higher level than they would otherwise be without this government intervention.

Land is a finite resource, and developed land in a useful location all the more so. While speculation might skew an areas value somewhat, the cost of purchasing, developing, and maintaining a property would definitely not be zero if renting were abolished. There are still going to be lots of people who can't afford to buy outright even if costs went down several percent.

Land should be a public commodity, nobody should be able to own the land, or the resources under them, or the lakes, or the sky, etc.

Buildings should be 'permitted' to be built on land, and people can own the land insomuch as they pay land value taxes for the utilization of the land. If it's a primary purpose and they don't get income from it, then the tax would be nil, if it's a second home they'd get 90% off as they're still a 'small fry', maybe 3-10 homes is 50% of full tax, and 10+ is the full tax.

LVT can then be funneled into housing programs, housing assistance funds, or straight up basic income.

Land value tax is the tax of the value the owner gets from the land, so if you're airbnb'ing you'd pay more if you make 10k per month in airbnb, then if you're renting long-term for 2k/month. If you still have a mortgage, you could maybe have some sort of deduction - but again that's only if you're owning 3 or less homes, anyone leveraging credit for 10+ homes should be able to afford mortgage out of their normal cash-flows, or they're over-levereged and need to dump a property or two.

So someone who uses land very inefficiently and thus gets very little value out of the land should have it for close to free, whereas someone who would use it efficiently and thus derive lots of value from it should have to pay large sums to keep using it that way?

Seems like a perverse incentive to me.

How do you know it's the landlords that inflated the costs? That's a major premise that you haven't demonstrated.

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